Thief of Dreams
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day ninety-six: Will has to tell his parents they won't be grandparents.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a second cycle, and then a third and fourth cycle. Now here comes cycle 5!_

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**"Thief of Dreams"  
Will & Parents**

When Will was a boy, he would play with the girl across the street. Her name was Meredith McKenna and all she wanted was to play house. Stepping in that house, he was Mr. Schuester, and she was Mrs. Schuester. And when Meredith's little sister Lucy was born, the Schuesters were parents.

By the next summer, he wasn't into playing house anymore, but he was still friends with Meredith. It would be through her, and taking care of little Lucy, that Will had the first inkling of how he wanted to be a parent some day. He didn't understand it as such yet, but it was there.

As he grew up, and he got with Terri, and they became more and more serious toward one another, that was when he understood this thing, this dream… it didn't just belong to him, it was his parents' too. Just as much as he thought of being a father now, they dreamed of when they would be grandma and grandpa. He and Terri got married, and he could see they were thinking about what came next.

After five years, when Terri had told him she was pregnant, he was ready to shout it from the rooftops. But then they had decided to keep it to themselves for a while, mostly with their families. Will had agreed to it, if only because that was what Terri wanted them to do.

Then his parents had come for dinner. He'd stared at his mother and his father, knowing he could give them that good news they'd been waiting on all these years… and he'd told them. He'd seen them have that explosion of joy; he'd given it to them. And they'd spent the next few months waiting on their grandson-then-granddaughter.

They'd call, check on Terri. His father would come and look around their apartment, making sure it was safe for the baby and offering to do the work with him. Taking home renovation tips from the man who had burned down his house was not the route he would have taken… but it was his father. He kept a close eye on him as they worked, keeping him from making a mistake. At the same time, his father told him about his classes and Will told him about Glee Club.

His mother had taken up knitting. She had stocked up on enough yarn to knit about forty pairs of socks and a couple of sweaters. Handling the needles was an uphill battle, and she'd put a few holes in the couch at first. Her first sock was odd and misshapen, but she'd gotten better. She'd finally made her first satisfactory pair of blue socks when Will called and announced there had been a mistake, and the baby was a girl. She'd taken it in stride and stocked up on pink yarn, started churning out enough pink little pieces of clothes.

They were ready for this, they were waiting on their granddaughter… Will was getting ready for her too…

She wasn't real. His baby daughter he'd watched grow in his wife's belly was nothing but padding under her shirt. It had eaten up his whole evening, lying on the mattress he'd pulled on to the floor, that he'd been living a cruel lie for all this time. It was as he'd woken up the next morning, rested but restless, that he'd thought about it, the one part that could possibly be worse than his finding out about all of it.

He had to tell his parents.

The thought of it was enough to make him queasy. How could he possibly do that to them? How could he tear away all their excitement, everything they'd been waiting on and replace it with emptiness?

He shouldn't have to do this. He should be calling on them with happy news… a new sonogram, baby kicks… nursery plans… It was going to crush them, the opposite of the night he'd told them about the pregnancy. This was an announcement he had no bursting desire to make.

He managed to evade it for a couple of weeks. It was Sectionals, at least he had one good thing to focus on, even if it had its issues. Those kids were like his kids sometimes… Not being able to be there, with them, seeing them through this first big competition, it was as though another loss… and if he couldn't be there, at least he'd do what he could to get them through the problems that got thrown at them.

They'd had their victory… he'd had a win of another kind too, with Emma… It was thanks to her that he finally got it together to go and visit his parents. He was going to tell them, he had to. It would hurt, but it was better than believing a lie… he knew it from experience.

He just didn't want to see them cry… The thought of making his mother cry was enough to make him want to turn his car around and go home… he didn't. He had to do it, and if she cried he'd be right there to hold her… cry with her…

His father wouldn't cry… He'd get quiet. He'd make like he couldn't hear anyone and just sit in all these horrible news that had been delivered on to him.

He knew why he didn't want to tell them, deep down. As long as he hadn't told them, his baby girl still existed… in both their hearts, both their minds. She'd been taken from him, but she was still a reality with the senior Schuesters. Once he'd told them, then she would cease to exist… for everyone.

He got out of his car when he arrived, and he went up to the door. He hadn't seen his parents since he'd found out, they'd know something was wrong the moment they saw his face. When his mother opened the door… she knew.

THE END


End file.
